{"id":12794,"date":"2016-05-21T20:44:19","date_gmt":"2016-05-22T00:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=12794"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:01","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:01","slug":"the-girl-with-the-leopard-print-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2016\/05\/the-girl-with-the-leopard-print-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"The Girl with the Leopard-Print Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>A twelve-key rectangular array of thoughts on phones:<\/p>\n

\u00a01 <\/span>\u2002Stieg Larsson, author of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and two other Girl<\/em> novels, died in 2004, eleven years prior to his ill-fated move from Sweden to Las Vegas, where he would pen the widely-panned novel “The Girl with the Leopard-Print Phone.”\u00a0 I read it, and I can attest that it’s a good thing it was never written.<\/p>\n

\u00a02 <\/span>\u2002If you are a data-lean phone user looking for a cheap upgrade from your flip-phones, I\u00a0highly recommend Consumer Cellular.\u00a0 We pay $47 a month (no contract) for two Moto phones ($80 each) sharing 750 minutes and 500 MB data, which is more than enough for our needs.\u00a0 Consumer Cellular uses the AT&T network: while not as well-regarded as Verizon’s network, it has been good enough for us.\u00a0 I hate paying big bucks for anything, especially once a month.\u00a0 Always suspicious of subscriptions.<\/p>\n

\u00a03 <\/span>\u2002Here’s another recommendation.\u00a0 We still need a landline — cell service is spotty in our mountain area — so we endure the usual array of annoying dinner-hour surveys and spam calls.\u00a0 If you too have a landline, I recommend NoMoRoBo<\/a>: this service intercepts robocalls and telemarketers on its blacklist and hangs up on them before the first ring.\u00a0 Best of all, the service is free for residental users.\u00a0 We have been using it for many months, and NoMoRoBo has not blocked a single false positive (<\/em>a call that is not spam).<\/p>\n

\u00a04 <\/span>\u2002On a more serious tone: the terrorists who attacked the Paris restaurants and bars, soccer game and concert hall last November coordinated their actions via burner phones<\/em>,\u00a0 one-time-use prepaid phones that cost about \u20ac30<\/a> ($35) each.\u00a0 The fact that one needed a\u00a0 passport to sign up for those phones did little to impede ready-to-die resident extremists.\u00a0 One thought that comes to mind: a deposit on cellphone service — say \u20ac600, refunded in \u20ac50 monthly installments — might make acts of terror more costly to coordinate, more traceable, maybe rarer.\u00a0 Maybe I’m dreaming.<\/p>\n

\u00a05 <\/span>\u2002I did not know this and rather embarrassed that I did not: our unit of sound intensity, the decibel, was named after Alexander Graham Bell, generally credited with inventing the telephone.\u00a0 Here I thought it had been named after the Liberty Bell or some other noisy or gargantuan bell.\u00a0 But that would make too much sense.<\/p>\n

\u00a06 <\/span>\u2002No matter what you read or hear elsewhere, accept this as true: Trader Joe’s wines taste cheaper than they are.\u00a0 I have sampled their Velvet Moon<\/em> Cabernet Sauvignon and their Andean Moon<\/em> Malbec, both of which sell for $6 here.\u00a0 Each of these tastes like every last molecule of tannin was filtered out and replaced with pomegranate extract. What does this have to do with phones?\u00a0 Only this: if you are thinking of calling Trader Joe’s customer feedback line to complain about the wines, forget it, because it doesn’t exist<\/a>.\u00a0 Just like those tannins.<\/p>\n

\u00a07 <\/span>\u2002Hello, art lovers.\u00a0 Here’s a little quiz.\u00a0 Which of these 20th-century telephone-themed works was created first — Lobster Telephone <\/em>by Salvador Dali, Le T\u00e9l\u00e9phone II<\/em> by Tamara Lempicka, or Telephone<\/em> by Morton Livingston Schamberg?\u00a0 Click thumbnails to view larger versions.\u00a0 Answer revealed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

\n

\n

\"Morton_Livingston_Schamberg_-_Telephone\"<\/a>

Schamberg<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Dali work was completed in 1936, the Lempicka painting in 1930, and the Schamberg painting in 1916, forty years after Alexander Graham Bell uttered his now-famous words, “Mr. Watson, stay there, I want to text you.”<\/p>\n

\u00a08 <\/span>\u2002Oops, sorry, wrong number.\u00a0 I meant 9.<\/p>\n

\u00a09 <\/span>\u2002Number Nine, \"ringo\"<\/a>Number Nine, Number Nine…<\/p>\n

Only one Beatles song (No Reply<\/em>) features the word telephone<\/em> in its lyrics.\u00a0 Four others mention phone, and nineteen include the word call<\/em>.\u00a0 By comparison, the word love<\/em> is found in 98 of their recordings and\u00a0you<\/em> in\u00a0186.\u00a0 Credit The Internet Beatles Album<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0*\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 Having arrived at the star key, I should act naturally and pay tribute to Ringo Starr (see photograph above).\u00a0 You know, it don’t come easy but I couldn’t let this pass me by.<\/p>\n

\u00a00 <\/span>\u2002Help us crack this phone.<\/span>\u00a0 Hey, go pound sand<\/em>.\u00a0 Really, help us crack this phone, it’s a national security issue.<\/span>\u00a0 Sure, you say everything is a national security issue, but we have customers to consider<\/em>.\u00a0 Damn you, Apple.\u00a0<\/span> We’re cool<\/em>.\u00a0 [Long pause.]\u00a0 You still want us to hack that phone? \u00a0 <\/em>No, we’re cool.\u00a0 Got someone else.\u00a0 Talk to you later.<\/span>\u00a0 Wait a minute… how did you do it?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>No, really, it’s cool.\u00a0 Next time.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Apple vs. FBI: when auras of invincibility meet.<\/p>\n

\u00a0# <\/span>\u2002Most agree that the tones generated by telephone keypads<\/a> (click the link to play the tones) are artificial and annoying.\u00a0 Nonetheless, some of those two-pitch tones are more pleasing to the ear than others.\u00a0 What explains this?\u00a0 To put it simply, or not so simply<\/a>, as Drs. Bowling and Purves of the Universities of Vienna and Duke, respectively, put it:<\/p>\n

In light of present evidence, the most plausible explanation for consonance and related tonal phenomenology is an evolved attraction to the harmonic series that characterize conspecific vocalizations, based on the biological importance of social sound signals.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sounds good to me, but I’d like to hear from you.\u00a0 Text AGREE to 28801 if you agree, or AGREE to 28802 if you do not.\u00a0 Data rates may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A twelve-key rectangular array of thoughts on phones: \u00a01 \u2002Stieg Larsson, author of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and two other Girl novels, died in 2004, eleven years prior to his ill-fated move from Sweden to Las Vegas, where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12794"}],"version-history":[{"count":83,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28273,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12794\/revisions\/28273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}